What with cloud storage becoming more and more affordable, chances are you've got a stack of old hard drives just laying around somewhere. At least one. You could just throw them away, or leave them to languish, or you could throw caution to the wind and make one into a cotton candy machine. Just in time for Easter.

It's not even that complicated either, according to the Chinese engineer who pioneered the practice. Sure, it requires some tinkering, but as for materials you just need a hard drive that can turn on, a plastic bowl, a soda can, a metal disc of some sort (like a can lid), and six bike spokes. From there it's just the process of hooking them all together like some kind of diabetic MacGyver.

Chances are this isn't the best cotton candy. It might not be fit to eat. But let's face it, you probably aren't going to do this. Instead you'll let your family of hard drives continue to make their own dust-flavored fuzz in a shoebox in the closet, but the important thing is knowing that you could do it if you really wanted to. So maybe you ought to keep holding on to those suckers, just in case of a cotton candy emergency. [M.I.C. Gadget via Hack a Day]